Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Crude Oil
- What is it?
- A Fossil Fuel from
underground made of
ancient biomass
- A mixture* that can be
separated by fractional
distillation
- What's Fractional
Distillation?
- Fractional Distillation is used to split the crude oil into useful substances e.g. Petrol. It does this by evaporating the
CO into a vapour and pumping it into a tower. This rises and condenses at its boiling point in the tower (the top of
the tower is cooler than the bottom) This separates the mixture into different liquids (and 1 gas)
- Crude Oil can primarily make:
- Bitumen
- Liquids at the bottom of the
tower have the highest
boiling point
- Lubricating Oil
- Diesel
- Paraffin
- Petrol
- Liquids at the top of the
tower have a low boiling
point
- At the very top at temperatures averaging at about 25 degrees C, LPG (liquid petroleum gas) is
produce. This has a boiling point so low it doesn't condense in the tower.
- As you go up the tower the
Molecules:
- Are smaller
- Have lower boiling points
- Are more Volatile
- Are less Viscous
- Ignite more easily
- Require less oxygen to burn properly
- But these fractions can be
distilled further to become more
valuable as they are still mixtures
- The process is called Cracking
- And Cracking is?
- Cracking is done by
splitting the larger
molecules into smaller,
more useful ones
- You do this by
evaporating the large
molecules and passing
the vapours over a hot
catalyst. Thermal
decomposition breaks
some of the bonds to
create smaller
Hydrocarbons.
- The result will always end with an alkane and an alkene
- Alkanes:
Hydrocarbons
with single C-C
bonds
- Alkenes:
Hydrocarbons with a
double C=C bond
- *The mixture mainly contains
Hydrocarbons, a little bit of
sulphur and sulphur compounds